This morning I stopped in Ace Hardware looking for brass tubing but no luck. Next I tried a railroad shop in South Hills and got lucky. Bought the last piece of 1/4 " tubing they had. What a fun little shop. They seem to have lots of railroad junk. The place reminded me of the one in Dunellen. Picked up groceries in both TJ's and Kroger before going home and working on the new probe. Not sure how to seal the end. Can't crimp it since it gets deformed like that. Tried epoxy but I doubt that it will give me enough of a seal under 70C heat without brass expansion breaking the epoxy seal. I installed the 1 TB drive in the Traviata server today. It seemed like I had trouble at first because the thing seemed to start with error messages but everything setled down and the music library is now in place. Spent a few hours organizing the directories of songs. Dinner this evening was bean burger with "Immunity" veggies, vidalia onion and the last of the Florida tomato. We also had some of the tomato for BLT's for lunch.

Went over to Lowes and picked up a new faucet for the downstairs bathroom. Also looked for a brass tube to use for the microwave probe assembly. Couldn't find one. Installed the new faucet downstairs which went well. Finished the job and the faucet looks good. The microwave came back from Maine today. On the way to sculpting I stopped into the Hungate Hobby Shop in Cary Mall. It's a pretty pathetic operation - barely anything in the store. Next I tried AC Moore in Crosroads before giving up. Went to sculpting and did a pretty good job of representing Christa. I got the proportions correct, now I need to work on detail. I'm going to try for a face and hair on this one. Christa is very beautiful but she doesn't have much of a female form. she's flat chested and not defined much around her tiny tummy but she has a very shapely rear end. I enjoyed thee evening very, very much even though I was tired.

Did the newspaper thing then started organizing some of my projects. We had BLT's for lunch with the Florida tomatoes I brought back. Filled the Kerosene heater in case it gets cold although it's in the sixties today. Libbie brought the first of the oranges to the greenhouse for Joy. We had her wonderful pizza this evening while we watched some of the super bowl ads. Turned it off and went to read my Karen Robards book.

Got up at 5:30 and was on the road by 6 AM. It was 47 degrees when I pulled out of Stoneybrook. On the trip the temp was as low as 37 degrees in Orlando. The trip was uneventful. Important facts to note: Jones College radio is on 90.9, the last exit in Florida is 380 and the highest mileage marker in SC is 198 right around Pedro's but the last exit is numbered 193 in Dillon. The Pedros exit is 1 in NC. Listened to Rigoletto from the Met on the whole trip except for a dead zone from Florence to Dillon. When I reached Fayetteville I was able to get WCPE. I heard the intermission features again since WCPE ran them after the opera since they were fund raising during the opera. Gave Libbie the 40 pound box of oranges - not sure what she is going to do with all these Honeybelles. Libbie fixed Salmon with sweet potato and Chardonnay for dinner.

Got up and started cleaning the place. Washed the kitchen floor, vacuumed the rugs and spread the green matte carpet out in the Living Room. Did some laundry then went to Yoders Fruit stand to get my 40 pound box of oranges. Also bought tomatoes and strawberries. He only charged $25 for the oranges. At sunset I went out for a walk in shorts and a tee shirt. It was cold!!! I got to the clubhouse and turned around. Spent the evening reading and packing my stuff. Didn't talk to Lib in the later evening although we talked at 5 PM. Went to bed around 11 PM. I'm really enjoying the Karen Robards book, "Guilty".

Stopped and talked with Christa then walked with her up to their condo. Chatted with Peter and Christa about the pool party on Monday night. I won't be there - wish I was. Went down to Venice and watched birds for a while. There was an amazing amount of birds on the island with varioius nests. On the way back I stopped into Yoders Fruit and inquired about getting a case of Honeybelles. The owner said he would get me a case tomorrow morning. A case has about 40 pounds of oranges. Gave him my phone number and name. For dinner tonight I picked up a turkey sub at Subway next to Publix. Took a walk this afternoon after visitng Pat in the Real Estate office and Janet in the admin office. Walked out to the wetlands area in front of Stoneybrook.

Woke up shortly before 6. Bill and Barb were sleeping in the downstairs bedroom. Libbie so nicely made coffee. I filled my thermos, ate abowl of cereal and was out the door at 6:20. It was foggy and lightly misting. I stopped at Florence for bathroom and a bacon egg and cheese biscuit. I waited 14 minutes and then they gave me the wrong biscuit. I got a sausage egg and cheese biscuit. Got gas across the street for 1.64 but I only needed 5 gallons. Emerged under the cloud shelf in SC and had blue skies and warm temps the rest of the way. Took I-4 through Orlando without incident. I was in Orlando at 3 PM which was good. Got into Stoneybrook at about 5:15. I stopped on the way in for milk and juice in Publix. Overall it was a pretty good trip. I found that the refrigerator door won't dispense water. Took the metal plate off the back to diagnose the problem but no solution.

Waited most of the day for Bill and Barb instead of driving to Sarasota. They were delayed in Southern Pines and came in at 5 PM. After some wine and cheese we went to La Cocina for dinner since it was $1 Margarita night. We had the large Margarita which is equal to 3 small ones according to our waitress. I had the La Cocina Quaesidilla which is what Libbie always orders. It was great. When we got back we watched the Joe and Christa wedding video.

Picked up a memory stick for the PSP at OfficeMax using the $10 coupon I had. The cost was $10 after the coupon for a 4 gig stick. The device goes out on the internet and can listen to radio stations as well as surf the web. Did a little cleanup around the house. I put quite a few things away in my workshop. Libbie scrubbed and vacuumed the house. Today is Chinese New Years, The year of the Ox. We celebrated by ordering a Chinese takeout which we had with a bottle of Chardonnay. Afterwards we had WCPE on and read our books with the gas log burning.

After the paper this morning I worked on the microwave all day. Finally got the probe working wihtout error and also designed a nice error recovery algorithm. After Libbies wonderful pizza we drove to the post office and mailed the controller to ME using priority mail.

Worked on building a microwave probe then got dressed and out to the opera. On the way there I stopped into Best Buy and picked up a Sony PSP for the web browser function. I plan to do Greenhouse monitoring by using the browser to see a local web page with greenhouse sensing. The opera was great. I enjoyed Mark Morris choreography. Afterwards I stopped by the airport on the way home and picked up Libbie. The opera was over at 2:45 and I was at the airport by 3 PM. We picked up Ribs in Trader Joes for dinner which we had with Butternut Squash and Shiraz.

Spent the whole day doing various changes to the microwave probe. Nothing seemed to work. Went to bed as a failure. Libbie called at 9:10 PM. She's bringing her Mother's quilt home. The temp went to 60 today, completely melting any last traces of snow. For dinner I had the Trader Joes calzone. It wasn't too bad in the microwave.

Went to Tiger Direct and bought speakers for Mazeppa. Downloaded Songbird and had fun walking through my music collection and playing random tracks. The program has a fantastic tag editor which I used to classify a lot of my music. Worked a little on building the Venus packet system in my shop. Charged the HandiTalkies, mounted the TNC board and a terminal strip. Will probably mount the Venus board with velcro. Dinner was Lean Cuisine French Bread pizza and also a Lean Cuisine Veggie pizza.

Did the credit union today with Libbie's checks and a rebate check I had. I also paid the Stoneybrook bill via Visa for 565 today. Went out for the first time of this storm today - roads were mainly clear except for shady spots which were still icy. Shoveled the sidewalks and driveway pad but they were still icy. Came back with cat litter and sprinkled it around. Had trouble with the spark plugs. The new Champion D14s needed a 7/8 deep socket which I didn't have so I bought one at Ace hardware. Surprisingly the existing Autolite 35's have 18 mm threads like the Champion D14's but they only need a 13/16 wrench. Communicated with Barb Pershing about the species program. For dinner I bought a roast chicken which was marked down to 2.99

This is inauguration day. woke to a few inches of snow on the ground. We may end up with as much as 6 inches or more of the stuff. It was a surprise. They predicted this but I had my doubts. A cold wave was making it's way down from Canad while Atlantic moisture was supposed to come in to collide over NC for 2 to 5 inches of snow. It may be 6 inches or more - who knows? I watched some of the pre-inauguration on TV. Instead of doing the dumb coverage of reporters in the snow they switched to National coverage and said to go to the HD transmission to see local snow coverage.

This morning we heard that it was going to snow tomorrow. I worked to change Libbie's reservation so she leaves today instead of tomorrow. Took her to airport for a 3:50 flight which didn't leave until 5:15. They waited for the plane from Philly to get in. It was pretty late. She flew to Baltimore and then was to go to Providence tomorrow. I rounded up the garbage, threw out a lot of CD's from my office and also picked up the greenhouse garbage and put it all in the can out at the street. We're getting ready for some snow that's supposed to start after midnight. Picked up a new remote control for our fireplace. It's an RF remote instead of ultrasound. Dinner was a mish mash of everything - some egg rolls, a Lean Cuisine and fruit.

Did not get much done today. Read the Sunday paper this morning then did some reading about packet and TNC communications. Need to build a comm system for the greenhouse. Dinner was Libbie's super pizza as usual. She used a frozen dough which makes a nice crust for reasons we don't understand. The frozen ones come out better than the fresh ones.

Did another day of reading about TNC's. Dinner this evening was salmon with sweet potato and shiraz. We had Birds Nest veggies as an appetizer beforehand.

We got up at 6 am this morning and drove over to the greenhouse to see how things looked. It was 16 degrees outside but nice and toasty inside. Both heaters in house 1 were running keeping the interior at 61 degrees. Libbie called the greenhouse every few hours all night long. After she came home late at 2:30 PM we had lunch then headed over for some repairs. I installed the aluminum heat shield then replaced the fan belt, The old belt was paper thin. Not sure why it was so thin. I loosened the motor mounts so the belt wasn't so tight. We had an appetizer of the birds nest vegetable with soy dipping sauce. Next course was salad then a pork BBQ sandwich. Very nice.

I picked up lathe at Home Depot and some Mollies to hang the quilts using the lath strips. After a dinner of chicken, rice and cury simmer sauce, Libbie and I hung one quilt in her office room and the other over our bed. It is going to be cold tonight so I went to the greenhouse at 10:30 and checked the probes. It was 25 outside but the probe was reading 29. Moved it higher away from the greenhouse roof and now it is reading 27. This is good enough to detect the 22 degrees that turns on the second heater. We woke several times during the night to check the temperatures. All seemed OK. Earlier in the day I checked the fan belt. It is well worn even though installed Dec 24. I cut a piece of aluminum to use as a heat shield for the belt when I replace it again.

Went to Home Depot and picked up a box to house the telephone splice. Looked up some sample wiring for a type 66 punch down block which I'll mount in the attic. Anne sent the species program from Barbara Pershing. It's pretty dry and boring but fact filled. Richard Nicholas will narrate the program. Picked up a copy of Wall-E which we watched this evening. Pretty creative stuff but I doubt if it's best picture Oscar material. Dinner this evening was Spinach stuffed pasta from Trader Joes.
I pretty much decided to go to Florida the last week of January instead of this week. Studied a little the sculpture of Harriet Frishmuth. Very nice stuff. I added some of her bio to Toms Life Bits. Stopped into NAD on 55 today and filled my tank at 1.79 and also filled the Kerosene can for 3.79 per gallon or $15 total. That was a shock. Kerosene didn't fall as much as gasoline.

Did some computer reading this morning the went out to the grocery store. I'm torn about whether to go to Florida tomorrow. I do and I don't. Charged up a camera battery and took some pictures of the internals of the LED grow light. Dinner was chicken with picata simmer sauce over noodles. Very good.

Libbie told me that yesterday was Mom's birthday. She learned that from Aunt Helen. I cleaned out a desk drawer and Libbie cleaned out Joe's closet in her office room. My laptop had trouble starting up and in addition exhibited a freezing which I couldn't figure out. Took out the hard drive, scanned it for viruses and also did a defrag and optimization. It was a success. The thing runs but not great. I'll probably re-install windows in the future. Dinner was the chicken/broccoli with curry simmer sauce. It was enjoyable.
The LED grow panelarrived via FedEx from Calif. I plugged it in and measured the power which was about 8 watts. The LED's are too bright to look at. The color makes violet leaves turn black. I disassembled it to take photos and measure voltages.
This afternoon I picked up some oil at Walmart and did an oil change at 36900 miles. Changed the filter as well which I had on hand. It's a FRAM PH4967. Couldn't find Champion D14 spark plugs for the generator. Tried Advance on 55 in Apex.

After the traditional morning paper, I scanned some more of the Christmas cards before Libbie came home. She and I took the old Love Seat to Goodwill and also went to target to buy 6 18 gallon tubs and 10 6 liter shoe boxes so she could empty Joe's stuff out of the bedroom closet. I did a little research on Landmark Forum and found that it's a cult. Downloaded a French documentary detailing the cult and their techniques to scamming people. I was pretty sad after seeing this and knowing what happened to Sue.

Scanned some of the Christmas cards in the morning then got dressed and ready to go to the opera. Left home at 11:45 and got to Brier Creek a little after 12. Decided to cruise the storefronts looking for Thomasville. Hit the McDonalds for a drive through hamburger before driving back to the theater parking lot. The performance of Rondine was enjoyable despite a few flaws. Peter Gelb announced that Alagna Gheigerou was recovering from a cold but would still sing. The real problem was the sound that quit during act 2, through the intermission and just for the first few bars of act 3. After that everything seemed to be fine. Theater management was very gracious at keeping us informed. The performance ended at 3:30 so we went across the street to the Thomasville store. Nothing jumped out at us so on our way to 540 we saw Ashbys LazeeBoy store. Lib found a chai she liked but the store was too busy to help us. Went to Raleigh and bought the same Lazeeboy chair and fit it into our little Corolla. Amazing. We paid $70 for the 5 year warranty which gives us a bottomless jar of leather cleaner. At home we had Salmon, peas and Yams for dinner. The new chairs look great in the family room.